New products, 10% exports, retail thrust SAIL’s new marketing mantra

Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) Chairman Shri P.K. Singh interacted with the Company’s entire marketing team and employees of local SAIL units at Kolkata today.

Acknowledging the efficiency of SAIL’s new marketing strategy aimed at gaininga competitive edge in the market he said, “For SAIL, the new marketing strategy, with customer retentionthrough enhanced customer experience as its mantra, is a way-forward to consolidate its market leadership and is a crucial tool for the turnaround of the company in the near future.”Pointing towards the stiff market competition, he added that, “Big challenges offer great opportunities. Capacity addition by other companies enhances market competition and in such a scenario SAIL’s intelligent workforce, experienced manpower and new assets are great advantages.”

Discussing several marketing strategies, Chairman Shri P.K. Singh said, “While retaining our core marketing values, we are strengthening our market-centric and consumer-oriented approach for reaching our customers. At SAIL, customer-value management is supreme. With stabilization of most of our new and modernized mills, we are diversifying our product basket with several value-added and ready-to-use products. SAIL will introduce several new and niche brands to its product basket. Gauging the domestic and international market, SAIL aims to have a blend of both markets in its portfolio.”

He added that the company is scaling up its presence in global markets through exports. 10% of SAIL’s saleable steel production will be targeted for new markets overseas, including Africa, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc.SAIL is also streamlining its channel management to address the needs of customers in untapped geographies. In the times to come, SAIL will focus on retail sales with higher volumes and deeper reach along with exploring effective ways of transportation and logistics.

During the interaction, Shri Singh praised the marketing collective’s efforts for developing dedicated cross-functional teams for marketing the company’s new products andexploring new markets befitting them.

This large group interaction with around 500 executives of SAIL is expected to provide a further boost to the stepped-up efforts of the company to expand and enrich its market share. Other senior management present during the communication exercise included Director (Technical) Shri Raman, Director (Commercial) Ms Soma Mondal and several other senior executives.

While interacting with employees by turn at each SAIL unit through large group communication exercises, SAIL’s top management has been brainstorming to further align its production planning with greater market orientation.